[opendtv] News: Sinclair Could Pull 30 Stations Off Comcas
- From: Craig Birkmaier <craig@xxxxxxxxx>
- To: OpenDTV Mail List <opendtv@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 8 Jan 2007 08:24:15 -0500
http://www.broadcastingcable.com/article/CA6404747.html?display=Breaking+News
Breaking News
Sinclair Could Pull 30 Stations Off Comcast
By Anne Becker -- Broadcasting & Cable, 1/5/2007 7:05:00 PM
Sinclair Broadcast Group could end up yanking 30
stations off of Comcast because of an ongoing
battle over retransmission consent - leaving some
3 million customers without their broadcast
signal.
Sinclair's carriage deal with Comcast is up Feb.
5 and the broadcaster is demanding cash from the
cable operator to carry its stations in 23
markets. Comcast, the nation's biggest cable
operator, is refusing to pay cash and says
Sinclair is the only broadcaster with which it
can't reach a deal.
But in an interesting twist, many of its stations
can't go black then due to a federal law that
says no in-market station can be pulled from
cable during a sweeps period.
By demanding cash, Sinclair becomes the latest
broadcaster to assert its legal right to demand
money in exchange for allowing the cable operator
to retransmit their signal. Last month, fellow
station owner Northwest Broadcasting Corp. pulled
Fox stations on Time Warner Cable in three
states because the two couldn't reach an
agreement.
So far, stations have accepted advertising time
from major cable operators or carriage of sister
cable networks and have only gotten cash from
satellite and small cable operators. Kagan
Research projects that station owners stand to
collect some $225 million in retransmission fees
this year from cable and satellite operators and
telcos, and $1 billion in 2009, the year some
station owners' cable deals, notably CBS, come
due then.
The cable operators have historically said that
they do not want to pay cash because they do not
want to create higher bills for their customers,
bills already getting hammered by the FCC as too
high. Comcast would not say how much Sinclair was
seeking and Sinclair did not return calls at
press time.
In a statement, Comcast Corporation Executive
Vice President David Cohen said: "Sinclair
Broadcast Group, one of the nation's largest
broadcast television station owners, has demanded
large cash payments from Comcast, and ultimately
consumers, so that these customers can continue
to view broadcast television stations that are
available over-the-air for free. We do not
believe that our customers should have to pay
extra to watch free TV.
"We are currently negotiating with Sinclair to
reach a fair agreement, but are not legally
allowed to carry these channels without
Sinclair's permission. We will do everything in
our power to avoid service interruptions without
adding Sinclair's proposed fees to customers'
bills."
Sinclair, which owns mostly Fox and MyNetworkTV
stations, has had similar battles with Time
Warner and Mediacom. Time Warners rights to carry
the Sinclair' station in Buffalo was up Dec. 31,
according to Sinclair, but was extended until
Jan. 12 when an agreement couldn't be reached,
according to a Time Warner spokesperson. And
Sinclair's contentious retransmission dispute
with Mediacom - with Sinclair scheduled to
pull 22 stations Jan. 5 - resulted in the cable
operator filing a complaint with the FCC .
In a similar standoff, Nexstar pulled its
stations off cable systems in four small markets
in December 2004 after the operators refused to
pay the 30¢ per subscriber rate Nexstar was
seeking. Most of the disputes have been resolved,
and Nexstar says the majority of cable operators
are paying cash (however, CableOne and Cox, two
of the biggest operators Nexstar fought, are not).
Nexstar says retransmission payments will go
from almost zero to some 15% of the company's
cash flow over the next five years
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